News — Collin Van Der Sluijs

Vertical Gallery, Chicago’s premier urban-contemporary art gallery, presents “Miami in Chicago,” a winter group show running Dec. 1–26, 2020.

“Miami in Chicago” features new work from the same talent — Martin Whatson, Alex Face, Mau Mau, Collin van der Sluijs, Joseph Renda Jr., Mysterious Al and David Heo — that Vertical planned to feature in Miami Beach in conjunction with Art Basel’s postponed Miami Art Week 2020 event. Vertical kicks off the month-long exhibit Tuesday, Dec. 1 from noon to 6:00 pm at the gallery’s 1016 N. Western Ave location.

“Just because the in-person art fairs have been cancelled doesn’t mean we can’t still celebrate the artists that have been working all year on their collection of work,” says Patrick Hull, owner of Vertical Gallery. “We have a very strong group show roster for Miami Art Week, and are excited to feature all of the artists in our Chicago gallery for the entire month of December.”

“Miami in Chicago” gathers artists from across the globe:

Martin Whatson is a Norwegian street artist best known for calligraphic scribbles in grayscale voids. Over the past decade, Whatson has developed an unmistakable aesthetic combining abstract movement with figurative stenciled compositions: His works mirror the rise and fall of the streets, as he symbolically recreates the urban environment, then vandalizes it to reveal his vibrant transformations.

Alex Face is one of Thailand’s most respected and prolific street artists. On the surface, his work appears playful and lighthearted, but upon closer inspection each of his pieces explores deeper themes of poverty, environmental crisis and the present and future of society. His iconic bunny character, Mardi — initially inspired by his daughter — represents the feeling of confronting a troubled world as a vulnerable child.

Mau Mau is a renowned British urban graffiti artist who’s gained an international following with his humorous street, print and graffiti work. His efforts incorporate political, environmental and cultural commentary, often featuring his trademark character, a mischievous and fun-loving fox. With roots planted in the surf and country vibes of the North Devon coast, Mau Mau brings an air of rural sophistication to the art he has been creating for 20 years.

Collin van der Sluijs is a category-defying Netherlands-based artist whose dreamlike, deeply personal work employs a rich color palette and vibrant brush strokes evoking the Dutch masters of centuries past. His third and most recent Vertical Gallery solo exhibit, 2020’s “A Garden of Trust,” revealed profound new depths and dimensions, with van der Sluijs drawing on influences as diverse as vintage comics and his grandfather’s exotic bird aviary to produce his most ambitious, immersive canvases to date.

Joseph Renda Jr. is a Chicago-based artist whose paintings capture the symbiotic connection between humans and the natural world. Inspired by leaders in surrealism including Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte, Renda often depicts highly realistic human forms interwoven with illusive natural elements; his use of classical oil painting methods and modern materials, such as spray paint, provide his work with a distinct combination of old and new artistic techniques.

Mysterious Al is an Australian-based contemporary artist who rose to fame in the early 2000’s alongside contemporaries/fellow street art pioneers D*face and Banksy, developing a notoriety for wall paintings, paste-ups and street installations. His latest paintings are based on ancient tribal masks, reimagined in wild contemporary colors. His work is striking and at first glance intimidating — but look closer, and you’ll see pieces that poke fun at man’s vulnerable psyche and fragile sense of self.

David Heo is a Chicago-based artist known for paintings and collages using non-traditional materials like crayons, house paint and construction paper. Named one of New City’s Breakout Artists for 2020, Heo’s visceral, provocative work frequently documents observations and experiences from his own life, with an emphasis on the complex, emotionally charged interactions taking place in bars, nightclubs and other after-hours milieus. “Honey and Smoke” — his debut solo show at Vertical in March 2020 — sold out on opening night.

Miami in Chicago
December 1 - 26, 2020
Opening day, Tuesday, December 1^st, noon - 6:00pm
Vertical Gallery, 1016 N Western Ave., Chicago

Vertical Gallery's one-year anniversary show, PAPER JAM, is curated by artist Ben Frost. Listen to Ben talk about the exhibition and discuss a few of the artists. All 17 artists will be featured over three videos. In this video: Anthony Lister, Greg Gossel, Mark Drew, Bridge Stehli, Michael Cain, and Collin Van Der Sluijs.

Collin Van Der Sluijs (NL)
At the age of 12 he attended the school for traditional painting in Goes, the Netherlands where he studied the old techniques from painting and theory. In 1996 he graduated and was accepted for a 4 years painting and graphic education at St.Lucas in Boxtel, the Netherlands. In 2000 he graduated the art-academy St. Joost in Breda, the Netherlands. He studied illustration for 4 years and graduated with a bachelor-title in 2004. His work can be described as personal pleasures and struggles in daily life, translated in his own visual language. The work from Collin van der Sluijs has been published in magazines, books, and shown in galleries and project-spaces or walls in The Netherlands, Germany, France, England, Belgium, The U.S.A, Luxembourg, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain.

Greg Gossel (USA)
Greg was born in 1982 in western Wisconsin. With a background in design, his work is an expressive interplay of many diverse words, images, and gestures. Gossel’s multi-layered work illustrates a visual history of change and process throughout each piece. His work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and abroad, including San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Copenhagen, and London. His commercial clients include Levi's, Burton Snowboards, Stussy, VICE Magazine, and Interscope Records while his work has been published in The San Francisco Chronicle, Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine, Artslant, and ROJO Magazine. Greg currently resides in Minneapolis, MN.

Michael Cain (AUS)
Michael is an artist working out of Melbourne, Australia. His artwork is derived from an affinity with birds and animals, and his exposure to them through pop culture and real life experiences. His quirky, abstracted characters are created with loose, fluid brushstrokes and a vivid colour palette that immerses you in their world and makes you smile.

Mark Drew (AUS)
Mark Drew is an Australian graphic artist, and co-founder of Sydney's China Heights Gallery. He has been based in Tokyo since 2009.

Bridge Stehli (AUS)
Bridge is an internationally celebrated artist, exhibiting across Australia, Europe and the USA. She was co-curator and founder of the acclaimed Paste modernism exhibition in Sydney and has been featured in numerous publications including Empty, C.O.P and Curvy. Bridge has recently combined her loves for painting and skateboarding into a range of skateboard decks and has produced murals across Australia and London. Originally from Sydney, Bridge Stehli currently is based in London. By referencing some of her early influences, specifically writers such as Lewis Carol and cartoons from Disney and Warner Bros, Bridge explores the importance of animal personification within classical and contemporary culture and how some of these fictitious anthropomorphised figures relate to, impact and comment on the physical world.

Anthony Lister (AUS)
One of Australia's most renowned contemporary artists, Lister's work presents us with a grimy fusion of high and lowbrow culture with influences from a number of areas and genres, including street art, expressionism, pop art, and contemporary youth culture, often drawing from television and the "misguided role models" that result. Revelling in the “spirituality”, and the “heritage” of Western popular culture he takes this joint legacy and remoulds it into something equally alluring and grotesque, a perfect representation of the society he seeks to depict. Taking influence from the dirtier and rough techniques of “Bad” Painting and merging it with the spirit and practices of graffiti art Lister has embraced an explosive, scratchy, scrawling form of figurative art using a variety of mediums from painting, drawing and installation to film and music.

Special thanks to Loosey Goosey Art for producing all of the PAPER JAM videos!